Sound Off for Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013

On Blackhawk Tech: The Blackhawk Technical College Board and president have lost touch with reality. They must make more cuts before asking the public for more money. The public should never approve a $4-million-a-year, never-ending exemption to the revenue cap.

-- Does it surprise you that Blackhawk Tech is experiencing severe budget problems? It shouldn’t because Gov. Walker and Rep. Amy Loudenbeck agreed to cut 30 percent of state assistance to all technical colleges. How do they expect young Wisconsin people to train for future jobs with limited budgets?

-- How many times must we hear it is going to cost the owner of a $100,000 home another $35 on their tax bill? Now the tech school needs money. How many times do people have to keep asking for tax money? If tech schools can’t support their programs with tuition, maybe they need to close something or change the way they do things.

On Jay Winzenz: Page 6A Dec. 7 was about our acting city manager and how the council President Kathy Voskuil thinks he’s done such a good job and that people should recognize him. So why didn’t the council recognize him and make him our city manager? He did a fine job, and he deserved it.

-- How embarrassing that Voskuil failed the appropriate pomp, circumstance and ceremony to properly welcome our new city manager but instead raved on about the stand-in. She could have done that at a prior meeting.

On Obamacare: Last Sunday, the administration sent Dr. Ezekial Emanuel out on the talk shows. What a smug, arrogant elitist. Oh so you people didn’t understand that you were going to pay a lot more if you wanted to keep your doctor? Well, you see it’s not that the president is a liar. It’s that you hillbillies are too stupid to understand English.

On rich: I got a kick out of your headline Tuesday about the new rich. Well, the super poor really don’t want to hear the trivial lies of the super-rich when we’re struggling check by check. What are these people going to do with all their money? Are they going to take it in their caskets when they die?

On Congress: Bravo to Paul Ryan and the Democrat who reached a bipartisan budget deal. Any reduction is just what is necessary to help cut more than $20 billion of our debt. Examine many more cuts for our spending, excluding food stamps and benefits for the poor.

-- Compromise has not been in the tea party’s vocabulary, but hopefully in the new year, obstructionists will be replaced by compromise. A good start would be to enact the jobs bill that has sat in Congress since 2010 and calls for replacing defective bridges and deteriorated interstate.

On pope: Time magazine has chosen Pope Francis as its Person of the Year. He sealed the deal when he slammed capitalism as a tyranny and criticized the United States. Liberals love that.

On Packer quarterback: On behalf of the Chicago Bears, I would like to apologize to Packer fans for Aaron Rodgers’ injury. It’s not like the play was way over and one of our guys picked him up and slammed him the way the Packers did to Jim McMahon back in the ’80s, but we still feel really bad about it.

On charter school plan: School board member Kevin Murray is opposed to having a charter school open (Page 1A, Dec. 11). Too bad he cares more about pleasing the tenured teachers than he does the kids.

-- Another charter school is being proposed. Who is going to pay for this? Aren’t our public schools good enough anymore? If not, get rid of them or find out why they seem not to be able to do their job.

-- Karen Schulte’s proposed charter school for minority students must be carefully evaluated. The school board should consider whether this proposal is a step toward re-segregation of our schools.

-- Taxpayers do not need to pay for any more schools. Put these kids back in Craig and Parker like everybody else has to do and quit making exceptions to let them go elsewhere and have the taxpayers pay for this.

On interchange: The landowner says he will pay for it. City of Milton residents, please do your own research and get informed on this industrial park and the developer who’s proposing it. Question your leaders and demand open meetings.

On sidewalks in city: I have lived at the same address on the south side for over 30 years. There are many people who walk in the street. I’m not going to wait 10 years to install a sidewalk. There may be fatalities if I wait.